Spicy Tomato Peach Jam

September 23, 2011 —by Lindsay

get fresh recipes via email:

Send Me:New PostsNewsletter

Free choice tomatoes.

Those three little words make me giddy.

Let me explain. Our CSA isn’t organized in your typical get-a-box-of-veggies-each-week way. Rather, you bring your bushel basket to the weekly pickup, and can fill it up with the veggies, herbs, and greens of your choice. You have a set quota (say, 5 potatoes, 1 melon, 1 handful of basil, and so forth) based on what is available, but if you really hate radishes (and let me tell you, after an unfortunate incident with a daikon radish last summer, we really hate radishes) you don’t have to take them. Less food is wasted and everyone is happier (oh, how glad we are not to have to take radishes).

But some weeks, there is such an abundance of something that any and all quotas are thrown out the window. You can take as much as you want.

That, my friends, is free choice.

Not quite as exciting when it is free choice summer squash or potatoes, but tomatoes? When the tomatoes are overflowing their crates… it’s like Christmas.

So when free choice tomatoes appeared a few weeks ago, I loaded up my basket with dozens of gorgeous romas with the complete intention of shoving them into jars and stashing them away for the winter months.

However, my original plans of tomato sauce were quickly put by the wayside as soon as I saw this: spicy tomato jam with peaches. Tomato jam? I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it sounds incredibly dreamy.

It’s savory and it’s sweet, it’s spicy and it’s sublime. Screw tomato sauce, I happily used every one of my precious free choice tomatoes in this lovely, truly lovely concoction.

Do you know what this is? It might look like a grilled cheese sandwich, and, well, technically, it is; but smeared with a generous amount of this tomato peach jam, it’s like having a toasty grilled cheese with a steaming bowl of tomato soup, all in one. Instead of on the side, the soup is inside the sandwich. A marvelous mashup. A divine convergence of two of the world’s most comforting foods in one compact package.

Directions:

Bring a large pot of water to a gentle boil. Cut an x-shaped slit in the ends of tomatoes and peaches. Boil for 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and place immediately in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. When cool to touch, the skins should peel off easily. Coarsely chop, reserving juices. You should end up with approximately 4 cups of chopped tomato. Do the same thing to peel peaches; then chop.

In a small bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup of sugar and pectin. You can choose to use more or less pectin depending on how “set” you want your jam. I used 2 tablespoons and the jam was very loose. If you prefer more, use up to an additional 2-3 tablespoons as desired.

In a saucepan, combine chopped tomatoes, peaches, peppers, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook until reduced by approximately 1/3, about 30 minutes, stirring regularly.

Stir in pectin mixture. Bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Quickly stir in remaining sugar. Return to a boil, and boil for exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam.

Ladle hot jam into jars, leaving 1/4-inch of headspace. Wipe jar rims and threads. Screw on lids and rings. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove from water and let cool completely, 12 to 24 hours. Check seals. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used within 3 weeks.

Did you make this recipe?

Bonus! You guys love your printables, that’s for sure! Since I cannot bear to have an unlabeled jar, I figured I may as well share my labels with you. This jam is worthy of beautiful labels, that I know.

To use: View and download the label PDF by clicking the thumbnail to the right. Print out the labels onto full-sheet sticker paper. Cut out and adhere to your jar lids. They are perfectly sized for standard narrow-mouth canning jars. Need label paper? Try here or here.

Disclaimer: Copyright Love & Olive Oil. For personal use only. If you post about or share these labels, please credit appropriately and do not link directly to the downloadable file but rather to this post. Please do not distribute these downloadable files. Thank you much!

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

What a gorgeous recipe…I love it when there’s a glut of veg going spare, especially if it’s tomatoes! Just read your comment on Fiona Beckett’s blog too – love that attitude…you’ve proved it IS possible to take beautiful photos and still eat while the food is hot/at its best :-)

I’ll be honest, I’ve been seeing “tomato jam” pop up a lot lately, and never really thought to jump on it… until I saw that you smeared it in some lovely gooey grilled cheese. That won me over. Making it ASAP.

Sounds awesome! I haven’t used low sugar powdered pectin before, so now’s the time to try it! I love the labels too! I make my own labels and yours gave me some new ideas on design :-) I don’t use label paper, just plain and a glue stick, which I always have around the house.

I’m the founder/moderator for Punk Domestics (www.punkdomestics.com), a community site for those of use obsessed with, er, interested in DIY food. It’s sort of like Tastespotting, but specific to the niche. I’d love for you to submit this to the site. Good stuff!

I made this jam tonight, it is excellent. I added a little more heat bc I used chili peppers and they were not quite hot enough- I sprinkled in some cayenne pepper along with a little bit of crushed chili pepper flakes. Since I was using large grape tomatoes I did not peel them, but I did peel the peaches. The tomatoes with their peels gave me more than 4 cups so I added one peach and adjusted the rest of ingredients accordingly. I also boiled the tomatoes longer bc of the skins and added a bit of water to make sure there was 1/3 reduction, and added the peaches so they would have 30 minutes as instructed. This is a great recipe, thank you for sharing it! I really appreciated the detail of this recipe as well :-)

My family can NOT, under ANY circumstances do a hot (as in jalapeno, Tabasco, etc.) type of spicy. My brother is a bit more adventurous and so are his grown kids but for the most part we would probably starve to death in a place like Mexico where they use chilies in everything they eat. Now they don’t mind a little bit of a kick, but my folks and I think most of the seniors in our retirement community that I make things for don’t do spicy at all. We own and manage a retirement community and during this time of year I work on Christmas gifts. I learned a LONG time ago that the last thing most seniors want is more “stuff” in their lives. Most are trying to scale-back and weed-out. I found out that if I do gift baskets of favorite foods and other life necessities they’re far more appreciative than a new “knick-knack”, shirt they don’t need (at my mom’s latest clear-our my dad had over a 100 shirts), or kitchen utensil when most seniors eat out more and more all the time. Is there any pepper, seasoning, whatever that can give this a little bit of a zest, more so than just leaving everything out, but that won’t bother the older folks out there?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.We only ask for your name and e-mail so we can verify you are human and if requested notify you of a reply. To do this, we store the data as outlined in our privacy policy.

Get fresh recipes!

Most Recent Posts

Looking for Something?

Get fresh recipes via email:

Send Me:New PostsNewsletter

What's Trending

About Lindsay & Taylor

Welcome to Love & Olive Oil, the culinary adventures of Lindsay and Taylor. We're all about food that is approachable but still impressive, unique and creative yet still true to its culinary roots. (More...)